Celestial
by Sally Mn
Summary: It wasn't Cally in the terminal bunker when it exploded...  Series 4 AU with dark elements
1. Chapter 1

**Celestial**

Dusk over Terminal. The fading light gave softness to the drear landscape, though not to the harsh tangle of ruins that had been an underground bunker. The survivors of the Liberator - just four now - were some way away, close to a small fire that was the only source of warmth. Silent, distant from each other, they avoided each other's eyes, their own thoughts, and the coldness inside that had come with a death.

"Vila rescued me?" Finally, one spoke, faintly, almost unbelievingly, and got no answer but a brief nod and a less-than-interested shrug from the thief, who looked away quickly, towards the shattered plexiglass box by his side that none of them could ever repair. The pilot looked around, still dazed - looked at the survivors, and noted the one missing. And remembered the mental scream that had echoed in his mind before …

"Where is Avon?" he asked.

There was no answer from the others and he finally looked across at the slim, shadowed figure by the fire. "Cally," he said softly, willing her to look up, "where is Avon?"

The Auron looked up, with eyes as deep and bottomless - and as alien - as space.

"Avon is dead," she said.

"Are you sure?"

She stared at him for a minute. She had gone in, alone, to the levels crushed and twisted by the explosions. And come out cold and silent, refusing to speak of what she had seen. Now she shook her head, as if clearing it.

"I'm sure."

**~oOo~**

He was floating on a waterless sea of darkness that was not quite pain but something that reminded him distantly of pain.

He almost thought he remembered Cally, staring at him from beyond the tangled girders, struggling to get through to reach him, her fingers just too far away as his sight faded. He almost thought he'd heard her voice - that echoing sound inside his mind - scream his name. But almost was not quite enough, and he let the thought go.

He wasn't sure how long he was there, caught in the darkness, before there was sound: a scrabbling at the wreckage around him, voices, faint and unfamiliar, the screech of metal being moved and the grating rasp of stone being pushed away. Light flickered in the shadows, bouncing off the girders and pooling around where he was trapped. Torchlight? He couldn't think why it was so _hard_ to think -

But with the light came clarity. He knew where he was and what had happened in those last few minutes. Cally and Dayna had gone to investigate the pathetic craft their nemesis had left for them, and Tarrant and Vila had been trying, rather badly, to start a fire in the clearing. He had needed to be alone and had used the excuse of finding Orac to go back into the bunker. Stupid, stupid! - of course it had been yet another trap, in Servalan's endless series of traps. Stupid to be so blind, so caught up in what she had said and done. Stupid to be thinking only of what she had already robbed him of, and not what she could still take.

So stupid to be mourning for a man long gone and to die for it.

_Stop. I am not alone, and I am not - yet - dead._

Avon tried to move, and the not-quite-pain swept over him with startling force. He gasped and heard his own gasp echo among the rubble. The voices were closer now, but he could not make out the words. Friend or enemy though, it could hardly matter now. He was suddenly awake, very awake, and aware that he was lying on his back, pinned down by metal across his chest and arms, while a metal girder held part of the collapsed roof only just above his body. He couldn't move, could barely breathe for the pressure. But there was still no real pain and that - almost - frightened him. He _should_ be hurting. That he wasn't could mean injuries he didn't want to think about.

He tried to speak and choked, dust catching in his throat. Then someone - a small man, with a worried face and the round, wary eyes of a very bright rabbit - was leaning over him, speaking quickly, urgently, in words he couldn't catch for the roaring in his ears.

The little man turned and called to someone else, and then the heaviness on his chest was gone, and a light, kind, hauntingly familiar touch brushed over his throat, as if feeling for a pulse. From a distance, he heard a muffled sound, almost like a cry.

Then his vision skewed and slid away into distance and darkness.

Maybe this is what death feels like -

**~oOo~**

_Or not._

He was vaguely surprised to wake again and lay quietly, unwilling to think past the surprise and the feeling of still being - well, just _being_. There was no heaviness on him, so they, whoever _they_ were, must have dug him from the rubble and brought him -

Brought him _where_?

He was lying on something softer and warmer than the cold concrete of the bunker. A bed, presumably - _oh, that's good, Kerr. Mind still sharp as ever_ _- _with something light, warm and formless thrown over him. There was a faint, stale odour, the always recognisable scent of hospital, hospice or medical unit, but no hum of equipment. In fact, dead silence, but for the slight sound of someone moving around the room.

There was still that same not-pain that he couldn't quite place anywhere in himself. But the drained muzziness in his mind and limbs felt enough like heavy medication to account for that. Whoever had brought him out from Servalan's intended tomb seemed to want him to survive, more or less, though who and why he was mildly loath to guess at. There was no one left, after all, that he could expect even calculated kindness from.

Then there was a dipping in the bed beside him, as the someone he had sensed in the room sat on the edge of the bed. A shifting of weight beside him stirred echoes of memory. His hand, lying loose by his side, was lifted and the pulse felt by that again familiar touch. As it was laid down, he opened his eyes, and stared straight into the gold-shot brown eyes of a ghost.

"Blake."

The name, barely breathed, hurt as nothing else had seemed to.

"How do you feel, Avon?" The ghost spoke steadily, his voice that rich, burred baritone that had echoed in too many of Avon's nightmares. He ignored the question, still staring. Blake's face was thinner, paler than he remembered, his thick curls were longer and glinted with the odd silver thread, and there were deeper shadows in the eyes. But no beard - not like the dream-figure on Terminal.

_Servalan's drug-induced electronic dream._

He felt sick at the thought. Throwing back the blanketing cover in a burst of something like panic, he tried to stand, and Blake had to catch him as he fell. _Not again. Never again, Servalan. Never..._

_But for a dead man,_ that always detached part of him murmured, _he's solid enough._

"She said you were dead," he said dully.

"She?"

"Servalan." He pulled away from Blake's grasp, leaning heavily on the bed and fighting back the weakness. "She said you were dead, you had died on Jevron, that she saw your body, saw it burned." He was vaguely surprised at how hard it was to say.

"And you believed her."

"I - yes, I did. I do. I still do."

"Do you want to, Avon?"

He knew he _didn't_ want to answer that. "What I want..." he said slowly as he sank down onto the bed again, firmly ignoring the fact that the other man had to help him, almost lift him back onto the mattress, "is not something I've had much time for since Star One."

Blake looked down at him, face suddenly creasing in a smile both gentle and mocking. "I thought the Liberator was supposed to solve that for you."

"Well, so did I."

"But -?"

"When you left," Avon said wearily, "you forgot to take your damnable rebellion with you. That made being 'free' of it difficult."

"I see," Blake said. And he did, Avon knew. "Would an apology help?"

"Possibly."

"I'm sor-"

"And possibly not."

Blake gave that sigh Avon also knew all too well, and went on slowly. "As - I - was - saying... I'm sorry I can't give you one. Not the one you seem to want."

"And of course you know what that one is." He stopped. This was all too seductive, the swift and easy slide into games no one else knew how to play so well. He had felt it with the dream Blake, too - Servalan's research had been immaculate - and he couldn't take the chance again.

"That is," he corrected, "on the unlikely chance that you _are_ Blake."

"Why shouldn't I be?"

Avon didn't want to answer that, either - or not yet - and settled for silence.

Blake shook his head. "All right," he said, and there was amusement behind his grave tone. "It can wait." He stood and crossed to the wall unit. Avon stared after him, dazed by his own urge to believe and his fear of doing so. _You made it easy because you wanted to believe it. _Servalan's voice echoed around him. _You wanted to believe that Blake was still alive. _And he still did, he knew that now. He had to deny, had to keep control, had to accept that this was also a dream...

_Why?_ that detached voice murmured. He tried to think of an answer, failed, and pushed it away.

Finally tearing his gaze from Blake, he looked around at the dimly lit room. There was nothing much to see: complex equipment, less exotic than the alien medical tools of the Liberator, banked up against walls the colour of storm clouds, instrument trays shrouded in plastic covers, and two other beds draped in white sheeting. On the table nearest him was what might have been a tissue regenerator - or might not, he was really more versed in killing tools than healing ones. It all looked rarely used, but was obviously in working order, or how else had they put him back together after...

If any of it was real. Which he wasn't about to admit. Not yet. Not just because he _wanted _to believe.

He pulled himself up to a sitting position. "Blake."

"Later, Avon. You need to rest."

"No." He _was_ tired, so tired... but oddly afraid to sleep, afraid to wake again and find this Blake gone as well. _If it's another dream, where will I wake next time? And with whom...?_

"Not yet," he said finally. "Blake, the Liberator -"

"Yes? Where is it?"

"Lost." He caught his breath. "Destroyed." He waited, but Blake said nothing, was waiting, it seemed. "My mistake, for believing in that call."

"A pity," Blake said. "But I did give it to you. It was yours to do with as you pleased."

"What about the others?"

"We didn't find anyone," Blake answered. "There was the remains of a campfire - oh, and the remains of Orac."

"Orac?" That prodded him to force his half-closed eyes open again.

"Remains only, I'm sorry. Deva took a look - he's good with computers, if not quite number two in the Federated worlds - but he could do nothing with it."

Avon waved that away weakly, along with the strange rush of emotion at the teasing echo from the past. "Did you bring it?"

"It's where we can find it."

"You didn't bring it."

"We _were_more concerned with you than with Orac," Blake pointed out mildly. "Go to sleep, Avon. You're safe, and no one can touch you now."

"Safe is hardly your style, Blake. But -" Avon shook his head slightly, trying to clear it, trying not to give in. "The others," he said again, the words slurring. He felt drained, almost worn out.

"_Later_, Avon," Blake said, and Avon recognised that implacable note, remembered that he had never found a way around it. "You need time to recover, you'll be tired for some time yet."

"And will you be gone again, when I wake?" That was not at all what he meant to say. "And Servalan - oh, I forgot." A last hopeless shake of the head. "She's dead too. Only plus to the whole debacle..." He sank back against the bed and closed his eyes.

"Not quite. Go to sleep. I'll still be here when you wake, you have my word."

He reached out muzzily and grabbed an arm. "Can I hold you to that?"

"You always did before," Blake's voice sounded further away, "even when I'd have preferred you not to. Part of your job, remember?"

"You needed someone..." but sleep pulled him under before he could finish.

**~oOo~**

He woke suddenly, sharply, to darkness and silence. Mind cloudy, filled with the remnants of that - dream? it had to be yet another dream about Blake, and of the earlier explosion, of being alone in that place - he felt a sudden shard of panic. So it _had_ been another dream, another delusion.

Several hazy figures, almost wraithlike in the darkness, separated from the shadows. "Cally?" he whispered, at the same moment rejecting the thought. Totally unlike her, or Vila, or...

"Sorry," Blake said softly.

"You're still here." He was too tired to think about dreams or deceptions any more, but not quite ready to believe just yet.

"I told you I would be. But I wasn't so sure that you were coming back this time."

"Why not?" He turned over, half-asleep again. "Better than the alternative... even with you..." Blake's laugh was the last thing he heard.

**~oOo~**

It was about the fourth time it happened - that he woke and Blake was there - that he finally began to accept. And of course, decided that he wanted Blake to leave him alone.

**~oOo~**

The next time, the little man with the rabbity eyes was there instead. He looked up, pushing floppy auburn hair back from his forehead. "About time," he said. "We were beginning to wonder if you would sleep for most of eternity."

"We -?" Avon started to sit up, this time determined not to give way. It was the same room, the same bed, the same austere feeling of a very old, underused ship, but with his returning strength and energy came the impulse to suspicion again. He dimly recalled this man being there one of the times he woke, along with a huge dark man with gentle features and gentler hands, a blurred, grey memory of an old woman, and of course -

"Blake is still here," the man said cheerfully, saving him the trouble of asking, "but the last time you woke, you told him to stop smothering you. Or mothering you." He frowned. "It was hard to tell. Are you usually that gracious when you're ill?"

"No more than usual, but Blake is more inspirational than most people." It was actually good to feel irritable, Something of the weight he'd been carrying for too long seemed to have lightened.

_Not because of __him__._

He noticed his teleport bracelet on the side-table beside him. Picking it up, he ran light, considering fingers over the mostly shattered panels, pausing on the communicator controls. Even though the teleport function was - well, no longer an issue - if the others had kept theirs, there might be a way to repair it and to reach them.

"My name is Deva, by the way. Lon Deva. I'm from Gauda Prime."

"I don't know the place."

"And you don't want to, believe me. I've been with Blake since he left Jevron."

"Well, that's nice," Avon said absently, "but where _is_ 'with Blake'? Who owns this ship?"

"Blake, of course, as much as anyone does."

_That makes sense. Wherever he is, he ends up in possession._

"We call it the Celestial," Deva went on. "I believe it's nowhere near as impressive as the Liberator, but it does for the purpose."

"And that purpose is -? No," with a warming flash of malice, "let me guess. Meddling in the galaxy's affairs, as always."

"Well," Blake said from the door, "trying to. Here." Coming to the side of the bed, he slid an arm under Avon's shoulder and lifted him to sit up. Avon caught his breath as everything blurred and spun, hands clenching automatically on Blake's other wrist.

_Dying is one talent we all share... except Blake. _He found it inexplicably amusing.

"We're in free orbit, aren't we?" Finally he understood the significance of the total silence, the lack of that sub-audible hum that had always been present on both the London and the Liberator, so familiar that the lack felt strange. "Drifting around Terminal?"

"Yes." Blake relaxed into the nearby chair, legs stretched out and ankles propped up in the edge of the bed. "You've been more or less unconscious for sixteen days, Avon."

"Sixteen -?"

"We've searched the surface of Terminal as best we can. If those who were with you are still there, they're well hidden."

"Or dead." He put the bracelet down suddenly, too hard, and heard another crack.

Blake's bowed head was answer enough to that.

"Cally must have believed that I was killed by the explosion," Avon said with difficulty. "She at least would not have left otherwise. How did you know where to find me?"

"I was called by - a friend," Blake answered. "A sort of friend, anyway. Since I knew those signals did not come from me, it was far too obviously a trap, and for you. I'm sorry, had we arrived earlier -"

"The Liberator would have been destroyed in any case. I ensured... never mind." Telling about that fiasco could wait. "We had to be answer, had to be certain. It was a mistake."

"The others were with you?"

"Vila and Cally, yes." That they hadn't known could also wait. "Plus two others, new people. A necessary evil, as neither you nor Jenna chose to return after the battle."

"Be fair, Avon," Blake said softly. "You didn't want me to."

"I promised to take you to Earth," a caught breath at the thought, a twist of smile, "didn't I?"

"You did," Blake allowed, fingering his lips uncertainly.

"So why didn't you contact us?" Avon knew his voice was weak, too weak, and tried to harshen it, determined to keep control, to keep the distance he might need more than ever. "At least to let us know you didn't want to be found."

Blake winced a little. "Is that what you thought?"

"What else was there to think?"

"It was not like that. Leave it, Avon, it doesn't matter."

Avon opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. Not now, not even after Terminal, could he say that it did. He tried again, taking the offensive so easily that it almost startled him. "To you, perhaps not. To the others, your _two_ remaining followers," he saw that that hurt, and pressed further, the stirring of familiar anger like a balm, "it appeared to matter. Vila spent most of the months after Star One inventing more and more elaborate reasons why you could still be alive and need our help, though we never heard from you." The odd, startled look in Blake's eyes made him pause. "Did you expect otherwise?"

"I would have thought after _that_ horror, Vila had had enough of revolutionaries, good or bad."

"It appeared not." Avon sighed. "If it is any consolation, he surprised me too. I expected it from Cally - and yes, she was just as insistent as Vila."

"That must have been - disconcerting."

He ignored the satiric interruption. "You could have at least let us know you were all right."

"I wasn't," Blake said. "My shoulder wound re-opened, and I was too ill to even give my name to the people who found me."

"Really?" Avon said politely. "For a whole year?"

"For long enough. I said leave it - yes, Broeli?" Blake turned his head sharply, to look at the stranger in the doorway: a small, thin girl, even younger than Dayna, with dun-coloured hair and an oddly pretty scarecrow face.

"Deva wants you," she said. "It's about _his_ -" with a jerk of her head towards Avon, "- plastic box."

Avon sat up. "Orac."

"Obviously."

"They've brought it back. Well, all of it that they could find."

Avon was bewildered by the flicker of - pain? no, that was ridiculous - he felt, and covered it by asking, "And the crew?"

"Still nothing. They're not there. We can't contact them anyway. When do we leave, Blake?"

"Not you as well." Blake sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I told you I'm not ready yet, not to risk leaving them stranded."

"Why not?" she snapped. "They left you."

"Broeli."

She shared her pale-eyed glare between the two of them, but said nothing.

"Tell Jak I'm coming to look. _No_, Avon," before he could move, "you stay here. Orac can wait till you are fit to work on him."

"I appear to have recovered quite -"

"Not yet."

"Blake, you gave up right of command over me when you left your - my ship." Avon threw back the formless cover and swung his legs around, sitting on the edge of the bed to catch his breath before standing. This time, Blake didn't move to stop or help him, but this time, it wasn't quite so bad. "If I'm to retrieve anything for you in this, it will be Orac. Now -"

He took a step, and stumbled; a wave of faintness swept through him and Blake was there to catch him again.

"You were saying?" Blake said blandly, while pushing him gently back onto the bed.

"Very well," through gritted teeth, "you can bring the pieces here."

"You should be all right to get up tomorrow, Avon, and neither Orac nor the Celestial are going anywhere. Broeli, tell Jak to leave it and go back to monitoring for company."

She scowled, partly at him, mostly at Avon, but left.

"Your new crew don't seem too eager to help your old one," Avon said finally.

"That's just Broeli. Deva and Jak, and my pilot Romanel, all understand, and the rest obey."

"Really. How unusual."

"Thank you, Avon." Blake smiled. "I'm glad to have you back as well."

_Now that's unfair, Blake. _He waited until Blake seemed to relax, then opened fire. "You still have not explained. Why you let us - them - search without any word."

Blake didn't move a muscle. His face remained blank, his gaze still calm and mild. "I said, it doesn't matter."

"And I disagree," Avon snapped.

"I must have forgotten how difficult you can be."

"Really? I hadn't forgotten how deceptive you can be."

"Avon... all right," Blake said finally. "All _right_. But remember, you wanted this... I did send word."

"No. With Orac and Zen -"

"I did send word," Blake repeated. "Not at first. I _was_ ill, very ill, barely remembered who I was, let alone what that broken bracelet was actually for. When I did remember, I sent word the best way I could, long range transceiver. You're right," with a slight smile, "I didn't think you'd begrudge me that last trip, even if it was late."

Avon caught his breath. "We received nothing, Blake."

"No, Avon. _You_ received nothing. But someone on the Liberator did." He stood and turned away so that Avon could not see his face, but something very near to agony was obvious in his tense shoulders and crossed arms. "It wasn't much, just enough for any of you to identify but with safeguards, information that only someone on the ship would recognise. I had to be careful. There were the people taking care of me to consider. I couldn't risk telling where I was until I was sure no one else could hear it." He stopped and drew a deep breath. "I sent it to Zen, and it was received. The reply was brief, again with safeguards -"

"What safeguards?"

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that I trusted it."

"And?"

"I sent my location. Which was immediately passed on to the nearest Federation fleet."

There was a hideous silence.

"No." Half-breathed.

"I am sorry, Avon."

"They would not... no."

"Someone sent it on to them," Blake said quietly, "with enough information to ensure that they would recognise me. One of the people on the Liberator... and I don't know who."

Avon closed his eyes, feeling cold inside. "But you escaped."

"More or less."

"And you have no idea who it was." Avon paused, then forced the words out. "If it is worth anything, I give you my word, I did not know."

"It's worth a lot." Blake spoke softly, the hurt easing a fraction. "Though not necessary, I never thought of you."

_Dayna, Tarrant -? Had to be... _"They had no reason, no earthly reason," he said, half to himself. "I would have called them honest - well, within the limited meaning of the word on the Liberator."

"You mean your new people."

"Well, of course. It had to be either Dayna or Tarrant, a dead rebel's daughter or a deserter-turned-mercenary. You don't think Cally or Vila could have -" He stopped, staring at Blake's face. "You _don't_ think it, Blake," he whispered.

"I don't want to." The uncertainty was raw in Blake's quiet, deep voice. "I've tried not to."

The coldness was growing. He opened his mouth to deny that it was possible, and found he couldn't. Not even for Vila, always reluctant to get killed for anyone's good cause, and who could have feigned that eagerness to have Blake back. Not even for Cally, whose harsh judgement over Star One had never been - vocally - taken back. And certainly not for Dayna, devoted and narrow-minded and callous towards outsiders, or Tarrant, who had literally stabbed a man in the back the day they met.

"In trust I have found treason..." Blake murmured, and in those words, Avon was back for a moment in a cellar on Earth, facing his own private level of hell. In the silence, he found himself rocking slightly, as if to ward off something.

He closed his eyes. "But you escaped," he repeated dully, holding on to the words like a talisman against that hell.

"As I said, more or less. Others did not."

Avon shook his head impatiently, uninterested in 'others'. "And yet you are still looking on Terminal."

Blake shrugged.

"That bleeding heart of yours. I told Vila once it would get us all killed."

"Well," Blake said with a smile, "not quite, Avon." He stood up, gazing down with a hint of - what, apology? - in his eyes. "If it makes any difference, I wish every day that it had been different. Stay where you are. Deva will be working on Orac - I'll have him report to you when he knows enough."

He turned and left. Avon stared after him, mind curiously blank with the shock.

_In trust I have found treason._

His hand had clenched on the nebulous softness of the cover. With a start, he felt his nails digging into his palm and looked down. At some point he must have let go; his fist, white-knuckled with tension, lay on top. He raised it slowly, pressing against his lips as he had once or twice seen Blake do. To hold back the fury, the pain, the flood...

_No more. _Coolly, deliberately, he banished the Liberator crew from his mind, sending them to the mental void where a blond smuggler, a phlegmatic murderer and a woman who had never been real waited. Lying back, he closed his eyes and began to reconstruct in his mind Orac's wiring, Zen's systems, the teleport, all the things he could now give Blake, and to make plans for a different future.

**~oOo~**


	2. Chapter 2

**~oOo~**

He slept fitfully that night. No dreams, he hadn't dreamed in all the time since being rescued by these people, but he had an odd, stifled sense of something wrong, and half-woke once or twice to find Blake and Deva, or the big black man - Jak, he had heard Blake call him - somewhere nearby.

_Don't you people ever sleep? _he remembered thinking, unsure if he spoke it aloud. Deva - intelligent, perpetually worried, eternally fretting - amused him, and he didn't know enough about Jak to make a judgement. _As if that ever stopped you before, Kerr._

But if he was to remain here on Blake's ship, a brief period of calm before the inevitable storms would be, well, different.

**~oOo~**

He was stronger in the morning and able to get out of bed without ending up in Blake's arms for a third time. Deva led him through metal-lined corridors that were shabby, coldly and weakly lit.

"As I said," Deva sounded mildly, ridiculously apologetic, "it isn't your Liberator. It's old, and wasn't much to look at when it was new, but it does for the purpose."

"What speed?"

"Standard by eight in an emergency, but not for long. Blake's been working on the engines since he arrived, bringing them up to modern standards. For an old war horse, it's not too bad."

"But it can be improved."

"Slowly. The work's not easy. Not even he and Jak can keep it up for long."

"Why not?"

"Takes a lot out of them, really. You see -" He stopped, as a heavy clang echoed dully around them. "Damn," he said, oddly peevish rather than startled.

"What is it?"

"We have company." Deva turned his light, placid gaze to Avon, as if considering. "Come on. I suppose it is time you learned what you've got yourself into once and for all."

"I would have thought," Avon said, as deliberately calm as Deva, "given Blake's previous skill at creating havoc, _that_ was something I do not need to relearn."

"Just come on."

The flight deck was nothing like anything he'd ever seen before, a museum piece, with ranks of aged equipment, large, plush, somewhat worn seating, and several incongruously modern, barrenly spartan tables covered with a miscellany of objects. Tools both old and new were scattered among broken games and a startling variety of weapons. Inconsequentially, he saw a teleport bracelet - Blake's - lying discarded and dusty by the command chair.

On the huge viewscreen, the edge of blue-grey Terminal could be seen, as well as a Federation warcruiser and several pursuit ships hovering rather too near for disinterest. _Presumably sent to find their President. Or what is left of her._

Blake was leaning over the pilot's seat, seemingly relaxed, talking to the tall, reed-thin man sitting there. He turned as they came in. "It's all right, Avon," he said; Avon mentally added it to the list of impressively stupid things Blake had said to him in the past, and ignored it.

"What is going on?"

"We're being boarded," Blake answered, outrageously mild. "Relax, everything is all right."

"Is it? As usual your definition of the words is rather less than -"

"Avon." Quiet, calm, but it was definitely a command.

"How many?" He heard Deva's fretful query.

"One warship, four pursuits," the pilot said. "The lead pursuit ship's docked and they'll be here in a few minutes."

"Then hadn't you better be ready for them?" Avon retorted, heading for the table where the guns were scattered. "Blake, I assume these antiques _do_ fire."

"If they're needed." Blake still spoke evenly. "Which they won't be. Jak?"

"Six of them, Blake," said the man at the door, "but only three headed this way. Burnel and the Old Woman will see to the others when you're ready."

They were all too calm. Avon began to feel trapped in one of the nightmares he was no longer having, and hated it.

"Blake!" He grabbed one of the guns - the newest looking, icy to the touch - and turned towards the doorway. Blake was in front of him, one hand over his, taking it away. "Damn it, are you all mad? What the hell is going on?"

The troopers came in, guns raised. Blake gripped Avon's arms, holding him still, as the men looked around, straight past them.

"No one," the first said in a hard, accented voice. "Told you, Section Leader. The ship's deserted."

"And has been for years, by the look of it."

The trooper shivered. "An' it's cold, too."

"I'll call the lead ship and tell them." The commander threw the words over his shoulder as he headed towards the darkened controls. When he walked past the girl Broeli, she gave Avon a grin and stepped aside, lifting a hand to the black-clad arm. Avon watched as the hand seemed to slide _into_ the fabric, right through the flesh of the arm and out again. The man went on to bend over the controls, fiddling aimlessly. "Almost like a ghost ship, isn't it?"

Avon felt himself sway and someone pushed him down into the nearest chair. Still weak, he let them, mind blank, gaze fixed on Blake's face. Blake knelt in front of him, hands still grasping Avon's forearms, not letting go, not letting him lose touch. "I'm sorry, Avon."

Understanding came in a rush, a shock like the pain he hadn't felt since Terminal.

"You said that you escaped, Blake... more or less." His voice was harsh in his own ears. "How _much_ less?"

"I told you I was wounded." Blake's eyes were shadowed. "They managed to get me off-planet in this old ship. Six hours out of Jevron, the life-support failed."

"Stop." He didn't want to hear it.

"Jak and Romanel were already," Blake paused, searching for the phrase, "resident."

"From long before it was an ancient wreck," Jak added gruffly. "Part of the original crew, in fact. We spent the best part of a century watching creatures like that Servalan come and go."

Avon stared past Blake in a daze, watching the strangers as they wandered around the flight deck. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"No one can be told," Deva said, oddly gentle.

"Even," Blake added with a twisted smile, "if there were the right words."

"Section Leader to Commander Durkim." The soldier was now using a communicator, voice clipped with boredom. "We've boarded the derelict, sir, there is no sign of life."

"Are you sure?"

"Not a living soul on the whole ship, but no bodies either."

"The Liberator must have escaped, then. All right, get back to your ship. We'll search the planet. The President must be here somewhere."

Avon stopped listening. He looked down at the broken chess-pieces on the edge of the table. Blake followed his gaze, stretched out a hand and picked one up, held it up between them.

"They cannot see or hear us, Avon," he said. "That I also learned the hard way. They can only see -"

"Section Leader," the trooper stuttered, eyes almost starting from his head. "_Look_!"

"A pawn suspended in mid-air." Blake slid his other hand down Avon's arm, took his hand and closed it tightly over the piece. "Jak, get the communicator."

Jak did so, reaching out and plucking it from the Section Leader's grasp. The soldier stared at it blankly, utterly unaware of the big man standing so close to him.

"They've switched their defence shields off to search, Blake," Romanel said from the pilot's position.

Blake glanced around, nodded to Deva, and spoke coldly. "All right, finish it."

With a shrug, Deva flicked a switch and the controls sputtered into unsteady light around the already stunned soldiers. Broeli glanced at Avon again, and a slow, cold smile lit her sharp face. She turned and walked past Jak, right up to the Section Leader, who was still staring in blank shock at his communicator - _hanging in mid-air, for all he can see, _Avon thought_ - _and lifted a hand to plunge it into his chest. He suddenly lurched, choking, face contorting.

Broeli's smile widened, a deathshead grin of pure spite.

"Why?" Avon found himself whispering, revolted.

"Her family were murdered on Jevron, Avon," Blake said quietly, holding him still. "And they remain dead."

Jak, with a grunt of disapproval, moved to one of the stunned troopers, wrapped a big hand around his neck and snapped it, then turned and repeated the action with the other. The Section Leader was twisting in agony and would have fallen but for the ghostly hand crushing his heart. Broeli squeezed tighter, watching as he died, then dropped him like a sack of black dust, to lie on the deck.

"Go and get rid of the rest. Jak, help her. Romanel -"

Romanel was back at the controls, flicking over them quickly. "All targets identified and targeted. And -" he fired the weaponry, and the ships on the main screen exploded in an very familiar, deadly blaze of light, "- dealt with."

Avon rose to his feet slowly, deliberately, pulling his hand away and watching the pawn fall straight through Blake's hand. That the sight made him ill was pushed aside, to be dealt with later. If ever.

He needed to get away from them. All of them.

"Very impressive, Blake. Your sense of dramatics is as keen as ever," he said coolly, more distant from his own emotions than ever.

"I am sorry."

"So you've said. Somehow," and he smiled, "that doesn't make very much difference, does it?" Wrenching free from Blake's grasp, he turned and ran.

**~oOo~**

He found his way back to the medical unit - _or mortuary, more like_,he thought savagely. Stumbling slightly, he crossed to the sink, leant over it and turned the water on, full force, ice-cold. Let it splash over his hand, icy needles stinging his fingers and palm, watched it strike and splash... and...

And suddenly stream right through the solid flesh. As in a dream worse than any Servalan had thought up for him, he stared at the water as it shot from the tap, down and though his hand, as if the hand were not there. He could still feel it in a strange way - not the cold but a not-quite-cold like the not-quite-pain he recalled from the bunker. When he had been -

"Dying." He said the word aloud, tasted it on his tongue.

"Yes," Blake said behind him.

_I always thought his death and mine would be linked. _He refused to look around.

"I didn't want you to die, Avon," Blake went on.

"Why not? You seem to have me well and truly trapped now."

That's not fair, and you know it." There was a silence. "_Avon_."

"All right." The concession hurt. He let it, holding onto the pain as a guard. Somewhere there was anger as well, vague and unfocused as yet. "But it is also true, isn't it?"

"No! Avon, what would you have had? That we left your soul to rot on Terminal - alone? Maybe you _would_ have preferred that."

"Don't assume -"

"If so," Blake swept over his interruption, "I can take you back there, you aren't tied to this ship as Romanel and Jak seem to be."

"And you?"

"No. I came down for _you_, remember?"

"Noble of you."

"Nobly stupid, perhaps."

"Yes, that as well. But..." He caught the words _better here than there, _and forced them back down. "I believe that you meant well. You always did, Blake, didn't you?"

"I meant to try and save you, to keep you alive, if there was any way that I could have."

"But you were too late." He closed his hand around the fragile plastic edge of the shower stall, felt it crack under his hand and crushed the shards against his palm.

"Yes."

He stared at the brittle shards, as hard and sharp as glass, in his hand; closed his fingers over them and watched as the edges disappeared into his skin, slid straight though his seemingly firm flesh. No cut, and no feeling. When he opened his hand to let them fall, there was no blood.

"Get out," he said dully.

**~oOo~**

Being undead did nothing to make Avon less impossible.

Blake watched in silence from the shadows, as Avon worked on Orac, watching as the assured hands trembled a little, the movements faltered. The flesh, as pale and clear as always, seemed to shimmer with an inner light and the probe in his hand slipped through, falling between his fingers. Finally, Blake came forward and took hold of the tool in Avon's hand. Darker than normal eyes, clouded over with a colder weariness than before, glared at him.

"You've been working too long, Avon," he said quietly.

"I am not tired."

"You might not think you are. It doesn't work like that, as I told you. But deny that you do feel... drained, shall we say?"

That seemed to hit a nerve, and the glare deepened. "That is not your -"

"Yes it is. If you want to stay solid - corporeal - for hours on end, you have to rest."

"Why?" Avon said, his voice calm and silky and filled with caged fury.

"I don't know why. I just know."

"All right, then, how?"

Blake sighed. Somehow, he had to defuse Avon's anger, he knew that. The anger was dangerous. Broeli had stayed angry, and the result was those hideous murders he could not stop, that she could not function without any more.

_Knowing it is one thing. Doing it seems no easier than before. At least that hasn't changed..._

First he had to make Avon rest, because the dangers there were even worse. "You've seen the Old Woman?" he asked quietly.

Avon shuddered, as if it hurt to even think of the greyed, badly-formed emptiness that haunted the lower decks, a sere travesty of a human. And there were others in the lower holds, like half-forgotten memories of people, that had been drifting in limbo since Jevron. Blake tried not to think about them too much and failed far too often.

Avon looked down at the probe, back up with a bitter, mocking smile, and let it again fall through his fingers.

"You're learning," Blake said.

"The dead should not need sleep," Avon snarled, sinking into a seat, his face touched with the slight, barely discernible trace of ethereal pallor that meant he had given up the effort to remain solid. For now. He _was_ still learning to control, if not understand it, but the effort taxed him more than he'd admit. "Then, I imagine most of the dead do nothing else, don't they?"

Blake inclined his head. He was not about to argue. He knew all too well both the anger and the chill, grey despair that could lurk at the edges of it, more cold and silent than the living ever imagined... and he recalled his own 'wakening', far worse than Avon's, in a icy, shattered hold where Jak and Romanel had been stacking the bodies of those who had been with him on Jevron.

But it was less cold with the others nearby. Less cold with Avon here. Maybe Avon would find it less cold because _he_ was here, he didn't know.

"Why us?" Avon spoke bleakly.

"Why -?"

"You said that the girl's family stayed dead, Blake. And others, I assume, since the galaxy is hip-deep in the dead. How is it that you and I... although I do admit, for you," with dulled malice, "it makes some sort of grim sense."

"Thank you - I think."

"So why?"

"I don't know." Blake looked down into Orac's glittering interior. "I mean, what made us alive in the first place? Was Zen any less alive than we were? How can you explain death when you don't actually understand life?

"Jak has this theory," he went on, "that it has to do with souls, even with someone like Broeli. Deva thinks it's more to do with will, that strong wills, strong hatreds or strong loves don't always let you go -" He stopped at Avon's quick, repressed shudder. "Is something wrong?"

"No." Too quick, far too quick to be the truth, but Blake knew that this was not the moment to push.

"Maybe we just have unfinished business."

"Ah yes," and acid was now etched in Avon's tone, "with the Federation, no doubt, your galactic meddling. That doesn't explain," he stopped a little too obviously, "well, _them__,_" with a dismissive wave in the vague direction of the flight deck.

"No, it doesn't."

"Then?"

"I don't _know_. Maybe we'll find out."

"In the next what, century or so? _With_ them?"

"Well," with a small, teasing grin, "it's survival of a kind."

"Not much of a kind, Blake, no."

Avon, lying back against the chair, gazed across at Orac for a long moment. It was hard to guess what he was thinking, but the anger seemed banked for now. Then a sudden, wicked smile touched his pale lips.

"Blake," he said softly.

"Yes?"

"Orac is working now."

Blake started, stared down at the little computer, saw the faint, intermittent sparkle deep inside its circuitry. "So -"

Avon laughed, not his harsh snarl of non-amusement but soft, genuine laughter. "So try to give it an order, Blake. Orac works by voice command, doesn't it?" The laughter deepened. "_Talk_ to it, Blake."

"Oh - damn."

"I just thought of it myself."

"So we can't use it."

"Possibly not. Do the computers on this ship have tarial cells? If not -"

"And I think not -"

"We have totally wasted our time," Avon finished, closing his eyes. "Ironic, isn't it? I can build you a teleport, which you do not need and cannot use: repair Orac, who will remain out of our control since it does not hear the dead: repair your computers, which are so old they are incompatible with the galaxy at large. And you, the saviour of the masses, are now trapped on a ghost ship going nowhere. So tell me, Blake," mockery like a knife-blade in his voice, "how do you intend to _meddle in the galaxy's affairs_ now?"

"That," Blake admitted, "I'm still working on. Be reasonable," though, as he recalled, Avon had never been so even by accident, "I've not been like this for very long myself."

"Your friends have."

"Jak and Romanel, yes, but they've been ship-bound. We are less so."

The dark eyes opened again, warier. "So...?"

Blake smiled and held out his hands; Avon stared at them blankly for a minute, then laid his own over them and was pulled upwards, though Blake held on as he drifted a little.

"You need to rest. Come on." Still keeping a tight hold on one hand, Blake slid easily through the metallic walls, pulling the other man with him. He could almost feel Avon's discomfort as they passed through, but it would get easier with time. "Ever heard the legend of the Angels of Mons, Avon?"

"No. Do I want to?" The wariness was turning into definite unease.

"Probably not. It's an old story, far older than the Federation, from the time they called the Great War. An army besieged, facing annihilation by the far more powerful enemy, were saved by an army of angels or ghosts, who appeared overhead and held off the attack until they could escape." He stopped at the all-too-vivid expression on Avon's face. "I know, I know, pure fantasy."

"And bad fantasy at that."

"But people believed it. Many swore that they _saw_ it."

"Blake, you cannot believe -"

"Oh, of course not, Avon, how could I? Who these days believes in ghosts?"

"Touché." Avon lifted his free hand in mocking surrender.

"But under the late President Servalan," Blake twisted the title as an obscenity in his mouth, "the dead finally came to outnumber the living. Even if only a few in each thousand cheated death as we seem to have done, it could be quite an army, don't you think?"

Avon shrugged. "I think that I am not surprised. You are incorrigible."

"Thank you."

"And still insane."

"Oh no, Avon," echoing the other's mockery, "think about it. Why do you think that such an exquisite political animal as the Supreme Commander became such an ineffectual ruler?"

"She -"

"She was never alone, Avon. She collected for herself a malignant host, that haunted her every step, and meddled in her every scheme. Not with total success - the amount the dead can do is limited - but well enough to destroy her. And her successor has his own retinue of ill-wishers."

Avon's deep gaze flickered at him as they went through the last wall, and reached the medical unit. "How do you know all this?"

"We were on our way to Earth - slowly, this ship is not the Liberator - when I found out about you."

A slight crease between the eyes appeared, Avon's frown of unadmitted curiosity. "How?"

"I told you, a friend called me."

"Cally?"

"No, Avon, she's a telepath, but not a psychic." They were back in the medical unit, dim and quiet and observably long unused, once one knew. From the way Avon looked around with narrowed eyes, he realised it now. "Sometimes we can hear a call, or a cry, from the living, more often than the living know. In any case, we've turned back towards Earth again. It will take a while, so you will have time to learn how to..." He stopped, looking for the words.

"To be dead?" Avon said blandly. "And to think I told Vila it was a talent we all shared."

"That was dying," Blake answered, guiding him towards and up onto the bed, watching as he lay back. "That's easy. It's _being_ dead that's the harder part."

"Yes..." Avon seemed to relax a little, then turned his head sharply, eyes wide open and dark with uncertainty, and even a little fear, defensive fear. "You will stay?" he asked with difficulty.

Blake felt no desire to laugh. He had also been afraid at first of the deep, dreamless sleep. "You won't be left alone, Avon," he said.

"I know, but -"

"So do I," Blake said quietly. "I'll be here."

**~oOo~**

In the workroom, Orac blinked again, the faint, whine overloud against the deathly silence. Then, with a click oddly like electronic annoyance, it began to transmit.

**~oOo~**


	3. Chapter 3

**~oOo~**

"Why do you stay with Blake, Jak?"

Blake paused in his own labour in the workroom. He was, as he had been for some weeks, slowly and carefully repairing yet another section of the old drive: work that would have taken far less time for the living, but which, however slowly, he would get finished. He could hear the others in the adjoining room, and also that Avon's quiet, precise voice was still laced with the weariness that had less to do with sleep and more to do with - with - well, Blake still wasn't sure what, but it had scared him into taking things slower himself, months ago.

It was six standard days later and Avon was still pushing himself too hard. Blake knew the feeling but he was not going to let Avon lose any more, not going to lose him again, not going to let him fade into a shadowy thing like the ghosts in the lower hold, nor twist himself through anger and bitterness into a ghoul like the girl Broeli, or the creatures he had sensed, even from a distance, clustered around the living President.

He put aside corporeality and his tools and moved closer to the door.

"Well, I can hardly leave, can I?" Jak rumbled. "Staying is rather a given for Romanel and I."

"True. I'm sorry. Let me re-word that, why do you let him lead you?"

Jak paused. "Why not?"

"Surely his galactic crusade has even less point for you than it did for me - for us."

"Not at all."

"How did you -?" Avon stopped. For once, he shied from the words. Blake could almost feel his reluctance, could certainly understand it. "What happened to you? Was it the Federation?"

"Not really. Shipboard accident in the engine rooms. It wasn't uncommon a century ago, safety regulations were low then."

"Then why should you care?"

"Because Blake's right, isn't he? It's evil. I've still got soul enough to care about evil, more so since I've had a century of drifting to watch it and to learn to hate it. I didn't before, the Federation was just there, a part of life, and I had a life to live, a living to earn."

"Yes..." So soft, Blake almost missed it.

"I should have cared then. Maybe that's why I'm here."

"But Blake - and I gather, Deva - did care. And Blake ensured that I did as well." Avon's voice was shot through with that bitterness again; he stopped, and seemed to try to control it. "That hardly fits us."

"No, you have to find your own explanation, I think."

"And how long will that take?"

"Well, mine _was_ a maybe, Avon," Jak spoke mildly. "Which means I haven't really found it after a hundred years."

"How encouraging."

"Besides," Jak went on with a hollow chuckle, "why not? Do you have any better ideas on how to spend the _next_ century?"

Blake waited for the answer but was not surprised when there wasn't one, and decided to intervene. "How is it going?" he said as he wandered in.

"How long have you been there?" Avon snapped, turning on him.

Blake smiled. "I was there when you came in."

"Why didn't you sp- no. Don't answer that." In spite of himself, a gleam of reluctant humour touched his eyes.

"How's the work going?"

"Slowly. This ship is an relic, Blake."

"Most ghost ships are."

"Most ghost ships aren't used to penetrate Earth sector. What happens if it's destroyed?"

"We're willing to take the chance." Blake glanced at Jak, overtly including him in the statement.

"Jak and Romanel could be destroyed with it."

"We know," Jak said. "We've thought it out."

"How reassuring," Avon said sourly, "to know that collective insanity outlives us." He turned away, staring down at the circuits he had been working on. "Angels," he muttered.

Blake glanced at Jak, who nodded and went out.

"And if I am not willing, Blake?" Avon asked.

"I'll think of something."

"What?" Derision dripped from the word.

"Something. I would prefer not to lose you again, Avon," he paused, "but it is still your own choice."

Avon raised his head, his smile savagely brilliant and icily despairing. "Oh, very good, Blake. You still pretend to believe that, don't you?"

"It _is_ your choice, Avon."

"Would you return me to Terminal if I asked?"

"Avon, that's not a good idea."

"Would you?"

_No!_ Blake was silent for a moment, then spoke reluctantly. "Yes."

"I will think about it," Avon said. "Now, Blake, I have work to -"

A bell rang hollowly around them, and Deva was back at the door, Jak hovering behind him - quite literally. "Blake," he said quickly. "There's a ship coming up on us from Sector 6."

"Federation?"

"Definitely not," Jak answered, with a peculiar edge to his voice, "but that _is_ the sector we just left."

"Is it from the direction of Terminal?"

"Not quite, but somewhere nearby."

Blake glanced at Avon, who shrugged.

"All right, we're coming."

**~oOo~**

It was an old, battered planet-hopper, undistinguished in anything but the fact that it did appear to be closing on them.

Romanel raised his head from the controls. "Do you want it disposed of?" he said mildly.

"No." Blake pressed a finger to his lips, trying to shake off an odd, skittery feeling of unease, like nervous chatter. "No, open a hailing frequency. Even if they can't hear us, we might find out something from them."

Jak shrugged and flipped the switch. There was a sharp crackle, and then a voice - young, female, flat and crisp - echoed through the deck. "Scorpio to unidentified craft. Scorpio to unidentified craft."

Avon, quite aware of the question in Blake's eyes, shook his head.

"Scorpio to - this is pointless," she said, obviously to someone with her. "The ship's deserted. It's derelict. Are you certain the signal came from here?"

Another unknown voice spoke up, unctuous and oily. "I am most terribly sorry, Mistress, but this is indeed the correct location, as closely as my inadequate abilities can establish. The signal was most precise and insistent, and I have been unable to countermand it."

"Yes, yes, you've told us a dozen times." A male voice, further from the communicator, interrupted: a light, youthful voice underlaid with both arrogance and charm. Blake heard Avon's caught gasp. "He means he's certain, Soolin. Keep trying."

"All rather pointless, if you ask me." And now he heard his own gasp, half-surprise, half-pain.

"Vila, nobody did ask you."

"And maybe they ought to. I don't like the look of -"

The woman overrode him easily. "Scorpio to unidentified ship, please answer."

It made sense, Blake thought, detaching himself from the shock. Orac had been summoning help for itself. If _they_ had survived, Vila and Cally - _oh god, even the names still hurt, when will I get over it? _- and the new people, if they had survived and somehow escaped the planetary hell of Terminal, would be most likely to hear Orac's message. It made sense.

He didn't have to like it, though.

"No answer. What now?"

Somewhere in the background, that oily voice spoke again. "Pardon me, Mistress, but I am receiving further instructions."

"From whom?" The young man asked impatiently.

"I regret that I have no way of obtaining that information, sir, but I have been ordered to dock with the ship, and as the order is from a superior system I have to obey."

"What superior system?"

"I am afraid that information has not been given, sir. I most humbly apologise, but docking procedures will commence -"

"No! Slave, no!"

"I am sorry, sir, deeply and terribly sorry, but I must."

Blake was watching Avon's face, as shuttered as ever but, as ever, more expressive than the man realised. "Charming character," he murmured. "One of yours?"

"Definitely not," Avon said with distaste. "Even more unsupportable than Tarrant, I would think." He met Blake's gaze calmly. "Are you going to let them dock?"

"They don't seem to have a choice, do they? Jak, go and watch over it. Make sure they come straight here." The big man nodded and disappeared through the door.

Avon crossed to one of the seats and sank into it, waiting with patently false composure. Blake followed and stood behind the seat, one hand on the headrest. Waiting. There was nothing to say - yet.

The door finally slid open, and two women entered, both tall and lithe and poised to fire their quite formidable weapons at any provocation. One black, one golden blonde, both beautiful: neither anyone he knew. Jak slipped past them - slightly through the darker one - and ushered them onto the flight deck with a florid bow all the more ironic because they couldn't see it.

"Are they your people, Avon?" Blake murmured.

Avon indicated towards the black woman. "Dayna. The other is a stranger. And that," at the tall young man behind her, "is Tarrant." There was a peculiar tinge to his voice, not dislike or irritation, but a thread of cold mockery more acid than any Avon had directed at him.

Vila - very much the same if a little balder - was next, still hanging back, still holding a gun as if expecting it to bite. Then Cally. Blake heard Avon's caught breath, that echoed his own.

_What have they done to you, Cally? _Always slender, now thin to the point of gauntness, her face white and more harshly cut than ever, curls pulled back severely: his gentle warrior was now a slim, severe, ice-cold ascetic in dark grey, with thin-pressed lips and eyes as hard as agate.

He looked down at Avon, who was also staring in shock. _It must have been since they lost him... oh, Cally._

"There's no one on board, Cally." The tall young man - Tarrant - spoke first. "No one at all."

"But there _was_ a signal," she answered, and Blake felt another shock at the cool, almost metallic tone of her voice. "You are not denying that."

"No, of course not," he answered a little testily, slipping his own gun into the holster. "I was the one who first heard it, apart from Slave."

Blake looked at Avon again. "Slave?" he asked.

"I have no idea." Avon stood, and moved across to the table where Orac was placed. He was now watching the young man, his eyes hooded and dangerous. "It appears that they have managed to land on their feet," with a shark-like smile, "in a manner of speaking."

Tarrant was still talking. "I just don't see how it could possibly have come from here."

"Maybe," the black woman spoke up, "from _that_." She was staring straight at the place Avon was standing, but it wasn't Avon she was pointing at.

"_O-orac_?" Tarrant stuttered. "It can't be! Orac was -"

Dayna crossed to the table. Avon, with a slight, graceful gesture, stepped aside before she reached him, as if unwilling to 'touch'... "Orac, is that you?"

"Well, of course it is. Who would you expect it to be?"

"But - but how did you get here?"

A pause. "That information is not available."

"You mean you don't know?" Tarrant asked. "How were you repaired? Orac, what is this ship?"

"I have been trying to trace the records with little success. It is a Nomad-class passenger cruiser from the last century, but was decommissioned at least eighty years ago."

"Well, that helps a lot," Dayna muttered. "But if there is no one here, how did you -?"

"I have been aware of my surroundings for six standard days now. I have had no contact by any person or other computer on this ship, though it appears the central controls are operative and all systems functioning. In short -"

"You have no idea," Cally finished.

"That is -" another pause, a touch of mechanical embarrassment, "- correct."

"Oh, poor Orac," Dayna said sweetly.

"This is impossible," Cally said, irritation in her voice as she gazed around. "This is - impossible. Someone must have brought Orac on board this ship."

"And repaired it," Dayna added.

"And then disappeared, leaving it for us to find," Tarrant chipped in, "_and_ leaving the ship fully operational - operating - just to make it easy for us."

"Which was rather too good of them, don't you think?" Vila finished.

"Too good to be true, certainly," the blonde said from the doorway. "After your last little stroke of luck with Dorian coming to take you from Terminal -"

"And the way that turned out -"

"I'd be wary of yet another unlikely miracle."

Blake glanced at Avon, who shrugged. "We don't know what they mean," he said with icily false sweetness, "and we can't ask them."

"They escaped," Blake said. "That is all that matters."

"Yes..." Softly, consideringly - dangerously.

Tarrant was now looking around with calculating eyes, at the controls, the computer systems, the scattered weapons and artefacts. Blake suddenly recalled his own old teleport bracelet, flung down months ago and forgotten ever since, and slid past the boy. He managed to push it out of sight before Cally joined Tarrant by the console. Looking up, he met Avon's coldly amused gaze.

"Yes..." Avon spoke satirically but was clearly not aware that he had automatically lowered his voice. "That _would_ be rather confusing for them, wouldn't it?"

"You know, we could use this ship," Tarrant said clearly, and all amusement died.

"No," Blake heard from behind him. It was Jak, his voice suddenly harsher.

"Not that it's any great prize," the young man went on, oblivious to the tension around him. Blake could see Broeli, eyes even larger than normal in her pretty, bony face, sidle a little closer. "But then neither is what we've got now. It's got to be better than the Scorpio." He ran a light hand over the console switches. "What do you think, Cally?"

She didn't answer. Blake could see the odd, searching light in her eyes that he recalled when she was trying to - as she had put it sometimes - 'feel the air'.

"Tarrant's got a point," Dayna said. "At the least, we could strip it for parts, perhaps." She shivered. "Hey, did it suddenly get _very_ cold in here?"

"Romanel, Jak," Blake said quietly, "stop that."

"But -"

"Stop."

Vila wandered past Avon, who started and looked at him with something unreadable in his blank, night-dark eyes. "Right, Dayna, and who is going to do the work? None of us are engineers, and none of us are Av-" He stopped, voice oddly skewed for a moment. Avon's hand half-lifted, and fell again. "Anyway, how much do _you_ know about customising? Don't look at me," hastily, "all I know I learned from Jenna, on the Liberator. This isn't the Liberator, in case you haven't noticed."

"Be quiet, Vila." Cally didn't look at him, and there was a harder edge to the all too familiar words. "I don't know, Tarrant."

"Why not? It's a derelict, Cally."

"It's also a mystery, and at this moment I don't care for mysteries."

He grinned. "So we'll read the log book."

"Scorpio can land. This would be of no use at Xenon base, and the five of us do not need and cannot run a base _and_ a starship."

"True, but Cally," abruptly serious, the detached gravity in his eyes at odds with his apparent age, "we may have a base now and we may have a ship. But we don't have fuel for the Scorpio and without it, we *don't* really have a ship."

"Then we will get fuel."

"With Vila's asteroid idea?"

"You have a better one?" Vila piped up, but the other two were ignoring him, intent on their argument.

"Blake," Deva said from behind Cally, "they may have been your friends, but this is -"

"You worry too much, Deva. Leave it." Blake was watching Avon, who was now looking back at him with an expression that was not quite mocking and not quite calculating, but somewhere in between. "What is it, Avon?"

"As you said," Avon said, so softly that only Blake could hear, "I'm not bound to _this_ ship."

"Agreed."

"And they do have another ship."

"Also agreed."

"Aren't you going to remind me that one of them is a murderer?"

"Would it worry you?"

Avon smiled. "Of course. But," turning to look at his old crewmates, "which one?"

Cally and Tarrant were still arguing, neither raising their voice, neither giving an inch. Blake wondered inconsequentially if they had been doing this since Terminal.

"Stop it, both of you. Let's go and have another look around." Dayna glanced at Tarrant, who shrugged and led the way out. The unknown blonde glanced back at Cally with raised brows, then followed.

"Jak," Blake said. "Follow and contain them."

"Cally?" Vila had watched the others leave before he spoke. "Cally, you're not going to agree with Tarrant, are you?"

"I don't know, Vila." She spoke slowly, and the apathy in her voice hurt. "Maybe I should. Fighting with him is rather more trouble than it's worth, don't you think?"

"I think _Tarrant's_ more trouble than he's worth. That's what I've always thought."

"That's unfair, Vila."

"Maybe. Doesn't make it untrue."

Vila wandered back across to the flight console, crossing very close to where Blake stood. Blake could have reached out and touched his arm. Could have, wanted to - and didn't. He watched as Vila fiddled aimlessly with the controls, aware of his own mixed emotions, of Avon's derisive, bitterly angry stare fixed on him.

_It wasn't Vila. Please god, just let me believe that it wasn't Vila or Cally._ His gaze went back to her and he traced with his eyes the new hollows and hardness of her face.

"I wish Avon was here," Vila said suddenly. Blake was aware of Avon's sudden, rigid stillness, over his own flinching pain.

"I know," Cally said very quietly.

"Or Blake. Well, _and_ Blake."

"I know." Even quieter. "But they aren't, and we have to make do with what we have."

"Who we have, you mean. Them." Vila said with a quick jerk of his head. "And I don't trust lady gunfighters. Not even pretty ones."

"Vila, Soolin saved our lives."

"And her own."

"And she is a member of this crew now. We need her." Cally turned to stare down at Orac. "We need everyone and everything we can get, to help us survive."

"Yeah, I know, I just think -"

"We have to survive," and the metallic sound was in her voice again. "Survival is all we have left."

Avon took a step towards her, and stopped.

"You can leave if you wish, Avon," Blake said softly. "You can't speak to them, and they can't see or sense you. But I think they would be enough to hold you."

"You _think_."

"Well," with a touch of humour, "we won't know until you try."

"Yes?" Cally turned her head as the three younger ones came back. "That wasn't long, did you find anything?"

"Most of the ship seems to be depressurised," Dayna said, a little grumpily. "Life support only in the main hold and the corridors leading here." From behind her, Jak shrugged and winked at Blake.

Cally raised her brows. "Coincidental."

"Yes, and I don't like coincidence," Vila grumbled.

"That's surprising," the blonde - Soolin - said. "Neither do I."

"It's not a great setback, though," Tarrant crossed back to the control panel, and the others followed and clustered around, still arguing. Soolin watched, a little way back and apart, amused but also guarded and suspicious.

Avon walked past her, his movement smooth and gliding, and walked straight into the loose knot of his former crewmates. He stopped and slowly turned a full circle, hands clasped lightly behind him, face showing no more than mild interest... eyes black and burning. Staring at each of them in their turn. Blake knew that expression, that unearthly fire, a little too well. He'd seen something like it - just a little like it - in Broeli's eyes the first time she'd found out how to kill.

**~oOo~**


	4. Chapter 4

**~oOo~**

_Through a glass, clearly._ Avon heard the words in his mind as he moved closer.

He was still disturbed that they ignored him, by the fact that he could move so close and they were no more aware of him than of the air they breathed. Less, even. He saw them all differently, as though there was a tangible but unseen barrier between them. He hadn't noticed it with the Federation crew, the strangers. He couldn't not notice it with these people he knew.

And there were other things... such a short time it had been, but they were different, each of them. Tarrant was tenser than before Terminal, his confidence hollow and forced, his light eyes aged by anger and unnatural caution. Dayna's pretty lips were set in a slight sneer that was not unfamiliar but now seemed too fixed. There was that chill tautness of loss in Cally, the steeliness of her gaze. And Vila... Vila was the same, but somehow less, a little deflated, like a rag doll someone had let the stuffing out of.

_It would be interesting to know how they escaped. _His eyes went to the blonde. _Or what she has to do with it._

_But not important._

He turned his gaze back to Vila, who was still fiddling with controls. In spite of his turmoil, he could still be amused by the sight of Deva hovering next to Vila, anxiety all over his mild face.

"Deva, don't worry. Vila's not the fool he appears," he said. "Unquestionably _a_ fool, but not the one to blow the ship up."

"Does he know what he's doing?"

"Of course not. But he's hardly going to kill us," with a knife-edged grin, "is he?"

"Avon," Blake said quietly.

Annoyed, he shot another dark glare towards Blake, then turned back to consider his ex-crewmates, to think of the unthinkable. It had not been Cally or Vila; he refused to let the doubt - the stealthy, remorseless distrust - take shape. _Not_ Cally or Vila.

Therefore Tarrant. Or Dayna.

It had to be.

He lifted a hand again, looking down at it, recalling what Broeli had done to the Section Leader.

She was beside him, though he hadn't noticed her moving towards him. "It's quite easy, you know," she whispered, pale eyes gleaming. "Do you want me to?"

"No."

"They killed Blake, didn't they?" That deathshead smile was back. "Or one of them did, and you think it was _him_."

"No. No, I'm not sure."

"He doesn't seem likely, Avon." Blake was standing back, not interfering.

"True," Avon said with forced calm. "But the least unlikely. I would not have thought he had the calculation to plan it," stopping, watching confusion, suspicion, wariness all chase across Tarrant's over-expressive face, "but I _know_ Dayna does not."

"That's not proof."

"Perhaps I don't need proof."

"That's not true and you know it. Not if you plan to go with them."

That stung. "I have not said yet that I do plan to."

"Or that you don't. Avon," Blake's voice was gentle. "leave it."

Avon turned to him, knowing even before he did what he'd see in Blake's eyes. "Blake -"

"Let them take Orac. Go with them if you wish, or let them go."

"One of them -"

"One of them murdered me, and the people with me. But three of them - four, with _her_," nodding towards Soolin, "did not. They need each other now."

"They do not need -"

"Yes, they do. They will be loyal to each other. They have no choice." Blake smiled slightly, sadly. "Because they have no one else. Let them go."

"With a murderer among them?"

"With a murderer among them. None of us had clean hands, Avon, and they didn't betray each other or you."

Avon caught his breath and turned away, staring at Cally, at the new coldness of her face, the unfathomable distance in her strange dark stare. "No," he whispered. "Not when it was -" and his voice dropped till it was little more than a soundless breath, "- was you."

"_Avon_."

He wheeled back around. "Damn it, Blake, don't you feel anything towards the one who -" he stopped, then spat the word out, "who _killed_ you?"

"Yes," deliberately, "I feel it. There isn't a word for the anger but we all still feel it. All the more because of the other people who were murdered, so many people whose names I don't know, will never know. But you can't kill in anger, Avon. Not any more."

"Oh, I think I can."

"_No_!" Blake moved between him and the oblivious Tarrant, who was again studying the controls of the Celestial. "You can't, because I won't let you turn that way. And you won't, because you owe it to me not to."

"To _you_?"

"You forced me to leave the Liberator, Avon," and now he was holding Avon with his gaze, forcing him to listen, "you forced me into that lifepod and sent me into infinity."

"Blake, that's not fair -"

"And when I sent that call for help, Avon, I sent it to _you_."

"I never heard it, Blake!" And he could hear his own anger drowned in the pain.

"I know that!" A pause, then Blake went on quietly, "I know that. But I didn't then. You owe me, Avon, and this is the payment I'm asking. Let them - let it go."

"You don't want revenge?"

"I never did, remember? Whichever it was," Blake glanced at the faces of the living people surrounding them, "he or she has been well and truly punished, I think. They all have." Blake paused, then spoke very carefully, as if knowing he trod on dangerous ground. "You all have."

Avon bit back words he hadn't even shaped in his mind.

"Death is just one punishment," Deva said from where he stood by Vila, watching them. "Life another."

Then his voice changed. "What is that noise?"

Avon had become aware of it as well, a faint, almost sub-audible sound that seemed to be deep inside, like a silent scream. From Blake's eyes, he heard - or maybe felt - it too.

They turned to the viewscreen, which was down. Blake was suddenly at Vila's side, hand poised over Vila's. Quickly, so quickly Vila would barely have felt it, he pressed down, onto the switch just below the palm. Vila yelped, and everyone turned.

"Vila, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, nothing! I just - my hand slipped, and I -"

The huge viewscreen blazed into life, and both the living and the dead stared out onto empty space. Empty except for -

"Avon!" Blake whispered.

"Orac's signal," he said through a throat that felt ridiculously dry, ignoring the others.

"It's impossible!"

"Obviously not. If you and I can be undead, then -"

Blake shook his head. "I always told you Zen was more than just a machine."

Translucent, and blazing with unearthly light, the Liberator sped towards them, like a galleon in full flight.

"It heard Orac." Avon found it hard to believe, but the evidence was in front of his eyes. Somehow, Orac's electronic summons had been heard by this seeming revenant of their ship, and like its former crew, it had come...

"As Blake said," Deva spoke from behind them, "the dead can sometimes hear the living."

"As you did, when you came to Terminal."

"Well, as _he_ did," with a glance at Blake.

The sub-audible screaming was louder - or stronger, or whatever the word was, he didn't know it - and began to take form in his mind, to be recognisable, to be a voice he knew...

The ship was heading straight at them.

Avon tore his gaze away, glanced at the living, who were crowding around Vila, staring at the controls, all of them oblivious to the icily radiant spectre bearing down on them. Tarrant was again speaking, with quick, distracted glances up at the screen.

"Cally, it all seems to be operating. I'm sure we could make it work."

"I'm just not sure that the Scorpio isn't better," the sounds began to echo and blur as the screaming grew and echoed in his mind, "from a practical standpoint."

"But that bucket of bolts isn't worth..."

"And this is any better...?" Vila said, his voice muddied and echoing with fretful worry.

"Scorpio is Soolin's." Cally, quiet but harsh, stayed longest, "why not keep..." Then she faded as well.

The ships seemed to merge, and, as in a dream a long way away, Avon almost felt he could _see_ the flight deck of the Liberator, see Zen's fascia glowing with icy, golden light... it was at once spinning past at a terrifying speed, and absolutely still, deafening with unearthly, echoing clamour and silent as the grave. It was hell.

And Servalan was there - alone - screaming against the clamour. An eerie, twisted mockery of herself.

Her huge eyes locked onto his, but she didn't stop screaming. He pressed hands against his ears, knowing as he did how stupid, how futile it was. The fury was all around him, the screaming, the rushing sound like a hurricane, and Blake's voice, strange and attenuated and terrifying.

_"Zen..."_

_"Welcome... Roj Blake..." _Zen's voice, hollow and sepulchral, _"Give your... instructions..."_

_"Take her away."_ Blake was beside him, grasping his arms, holding him still in the unholy, frantic, chaotic stillness. _"Take her away - forever - set course for the edge of the universe, and keep going!" _Servalan's empty, soulless eyes widened, immeasurable depths of horror. _"Just go!"_

_"Confirmed..."_

_"No!" _She shrieked.

"NOW, Zen!"

The flight deck that wasn't sped past him, and away... and the screaming faded.

And was gone.

Dazed and shaking, Avon would have fallen but for Blake's hands, and he wasn't all that sure those hands weren't trembling. He waited until he could speak calmly - or semi-calmly. "That was cruel, Blake."

"Not really," Blake said in that cold, detached tone he recalled. "Not to her. She can harm no one now. Ever. Again."

He felt a touch of coldness, like a spectral hand against his face. "A judgement, Blake?" _As you would not let me judge __them_, he thought but did not say.

"A just one."

"Oh, I agree. But it was cruel - to Zen."

He looked around, at the oblivious living, and the silent, waiting dead. Looked at Tarrant and Dayna, and dismissed them from his mind, this time for good. Looked at Cally, and shut away the distant rasp of pain. Looked at Vila... and hoped for the best for him.

"Avon, we are waiting for you," Blake said quietly.

Avon shook his head. It was going to take time to adjust.

_But,_ he thought, suddenly amused, _if we don't have all the time in the galaxy when we're dead, when will we ever?_

"Send them away," he whispered. "As Blake said, let them take Orac... and go."

**~oOo~**

"So now what?" Avon watched the planet-hopper disappear from the viewscreen, and with it, the last links to the past.

It had been absurdly easy: a few alarms, a few flickering switches, and Romanel's long light fingers manipulating the life support to foul the air. Nothing dangerous, of course. But when the self-destruct lit up under Blake's hand, they had left quickly, Tarrant's grating "That's impossible!" notwithstanding. Vila was first out the door - _oh, now __that__ is surprising,_ Avon thought - then Tarrant and Dayna with Orac, blinking madly and chattering non-stop about being moved to safety at once. The stranger Soolin, as calm and cool as an ice floe, followed. Cally was last, hesitating, staring around with that odd, distant, searching expression for a moment. Then she turned at Vila's wail of "Cally, come _on_!" and was gone.

Blake hesitated, as if tempted to see them to their own ship, to see them for a few minutes more, but Deva shook his head slightly. Avon, struck by the same impulse as Blake, remained still, watching the viewscreen until the planet-hopper appeared and accelerated back towards the sector from which it came.

"Blake?" He turned his head, unconsciously dusting his hands. The anger had eased, that was one thing. Though it would take time to fade - if it ever did - the bitterness didn't sear so coldly any more. Avon could see that Blake knew it, and that annoyed him, but in a way so old and familiar that it was almost a pleasure.

"Well, I was going to Earth, at one stage," Blake mused. "Before I was side-tracked. It will take some time, of course."

"Ah yes, your angels. Whatever they were."

"It's just an old legend, Avon," Deva said.

"Yes, isn't it?" Avon gave Deva a dazzlingly sweet smile, rather pleased when the other looked a touch uneasy. Some things didn't change in this hopefully less-than-exciting afterlife... he stopped that thought. Somehow, he was himself just a little uneasy at the thought of how exciting Blake could probably make even being dead.

"But as I remember," he went on, "Blake has some experience with legends. Don't you?"

"In this legend," Blake said calmly, "the dead fought for the living. I don't see why that, at least, can't be emulated. Can you?"

"It's a stupid idea," Avon answered. "Romantically stupid, of course. Fantastically stupid. But still stupid."

"But can you?"

"Blake, it won't work."

"But can you?"

A pause, then Avon surrendered. "The Celestial's drive should be improved," he said sharply. "If you want to get anywhere near Earth in one piece - _metaphorically_ speaking, of course - it will need to be."

"And the detector shield?"

"I can try."

"But not too hard, Avon." Blake ushered him back towards the door. "There's a lot to do, I know. But we do have time enough now."

"Yes..." Avon said slowly, musingly. "Just one thing, Blake."

"Yes?" Those large burnt-honey eyes, always a touch otherworldly now he came to think of it, turned to him.

"That friend of yours, who called you to Terminal - who was it? Someone we both know?"

"More or less." Blake led him through the door - quite literally through the door, but it felt less strange this time. "Avon, couldn't you have guessed? I heard a voice - a thought - from someone who believed he'd located me for the first time since the War," and he smiled, "and just as Zen heard Orac - Avon, I heard _you_."

**-****the end-**


End file.
